w/c 11 June 2012 – Discovery News Roundup

Although I’ve been away over recent weeks, activity within the world of open metadata has continued unabated – here is my digest of activity from within the Discovery programme and from further afield.

In April members of the Discovery programme together with colleagues from associated projects attended a Joint Content and Discovery Programme knowledge sharing event. My event report is here on this blog.

Last month OCLC released the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) dataset under an open data licence, together with their guidance on attribution. OCLC has also recently launched their WorldShare Management Service which provides libraries with “a new approach to managing library services cooperatively, including integrated acquisitions, cataloging, circulation, resource sharing, license management and patron administration, as well as a next-gen discovery tool for library users.” (emphasis is mine).

America’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) presented a showcase of the National Library of Medicine APIs that are available to developers. A recording of the live webcast is available to view online. The NIH has clearly decided to move beyond the more commonly found ‘build it and they will come’ approach and are actively engaging the developer community to help them understand what APIs are available. More recently they ran a two day Health Datapalooza event which brought together NLM data experts and developers. The event was livestreamed and you can view the archived video online.

Closer to home, discussion of data in The Guardian has made it out of their Data Store pages and into the pages of their Culture Professionals Network blog. Patrick Hussey has written a three -part wide ranging exploration of data within the arts and culture sector which argues that it is time to open up performance paradata and look at ways of making their shared data count. Patrick’s main focus is on open data rather than open metadata but the series is very thought provoking and in his second article he points to the work of The National Archive in creating an open API database legislation in the shape of: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/

The BBC Connected Studio project is an open collaboration initiative that kicked off in May and is initially focused on developing new approaches to personalisation using DevCSI-style hackspace gatherings to bring together digital talent from outside the BBC. Later this year the focus shifts to “connected platforms and big data” which could mean some interesting developments that the MLA sectors might benefit from and opportunities for MLA developers to get involved by responding to Connected Studio call for participants.

The Imperial Museum is heading an international partnership of organisations in the run-up to the beginning of a four-year programme of activities to commemorate the First World War Centenary: “Through the partnership, colleagues from a variety of sectors [including museums, archives, libraries, universities and colleges, special interest groups and broadcasters] have the opportunity to communicate with each other, share and combine resources, cooperate and co-develop products and services that complement each other […]”. It will be interesting to see whether any developments similar to the Will’s World Discovery aggregation project emerge as a result of such a broad collaborative partnership.